10/7/2009

 

 

            I read yesterday that the Supreme Court was going to decide on whether a ban on videos showing graphic animal cruelty was too broad.

 

            That worries me. Animals do have some vocal defenders, but like abortion sometimes the extremists damage the movement. Animals have intelligence, feelings, and  emotions. Whoever said they didn’t was either choosing to ignore the obvious or not smart enough to see what was right in front of their face. Anyone that has accidentally stepped on their dog’s foot can tell you animals feel pain.

 

            A society may be judged by the way that they care for their weakest members. I’ve heard that said and it doesn’t speak well for mine.

 

            I’ve never been anti-authority just for the sake of it. I’m pro-cop, pro-military and pro-government when it’s a good government. Ours is good. The system is good that is, but like anything else, to function properly it needs time, attention and care by those in charge. Our forefathers designed it so that we were in charge, thus that means we must pay attention and take care of business.

 

            In short, anything thing that stands between me and chaos is just fine by me. I’ve seen the underbelly of man and I want it to stay “under”.

 

            Nonetheless, I sit here at 6:30 am – not trusting our Supreme Court to act wisely here. That is upsetting to me. Somewhere deep inside, I still want to be a child, safely tucked away in bed as mom and dad keep me safe from evil and injustice. 

 

            What changed? Why would someone like me question authority like this? Why do I wake up from a nightmares of Michael Vick’s throwing rabbits to pit bulls to “train them up”?

 

            Truth? I’ve never gotten over Terri Schiavo. However you felt about it, whatever you think you knew about it, make the effort to put it aside so you don’t miss the point here.

 

            Whatever fact soup you stir around it, whatever situation, whatever justification, a young woman’s family watched as a government-sanctioned death by negligence took her away forever. Doctors stood by. Policemen stood by. Politicians fought and got nowhere. Judges banded together like settlers in covered wagons. Every place her parents might have gotten helped failed them. Utterly.

 

           

            As a family pleaded in the last months,  their case was bounced out with the icy demeanor and lack of explanation generally reserved for Nazis in old movie scenes. A Federal judge made the Schiavo’s wait until he had his breakfast while they were trying to save their daughter from starving.

 

            The worst PR man in the world would have advised against that.

 

I could write a book about the details of that case but there’s no point in getting carried away with it here. Terri’s gone and now her father is gone too. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. What man could have held up under that kind of helplessness?

 

             The point is that sometimes things that involve humans can get so layered in abstractions that it seems to blind those in positions of responsibility.

 

             Previous decisions have underlined my concern.

 

             Property taken from private owners under the guise of benefiting the public via the tax base, yet actually just re-sold to developers.

 

           Protection of computer generated child pornography in spite of the fact that man is highly susceptible to suggestion and the fake inspires as well as the genuine.

 

 

         Hmm. No great disaster was the result of a single mistake. Not the Titanic. Not 9-11.

 

            I was watching a special the other day about the Supreme Court. It was fascinating. I’m always fascinated by close-up looks at the halls in which our history took place or decisions that reverberate throughout the country are made. Miles of marble and old wood. You can nearly smell it. You sense the grandeur. The feel of the power vibrates around it.

 

            Should we expect our judges to be better than human? Of course we should. I say that tongue-in-cheek because expect as much as you like, they are still human – but there’s no point in starting with low expectations, is there?

 

            Would I be able to sit in those rooms and not see visions of my own words echoing through the years that follow – possibly for decades or even centuries? Could I keep my feet on the ground when I see that I am a part of one of the greatest experiments in Democracy that ever existed? An exalted position in a Grand Theater in a Grand Land?

.

 

            Jeeze. Would I forget, in my complex and brilliant interpretations of what the law should be in order to maintain the standards set forth by others with the same great responsibility – that what I say – that what I do – has an effect as real as my hand in front of my face and the cold coffee on my desk?

 

            Or would I get lost in the sound of my own voice as I’m carefully protected from the casual brutality that happens every day to those less fortunate than myself?

            I’d love to say, oh yes, I could manage it - but I can’t. Not without violating my vow of honesty to my readers. I might make mistakes, but I won’t lie. I just don’t know if I could stay grounded in those circumstances.

           

           If I’m a pet owner and I set a rule that animals in my home are cherished and protected, if a stray animal gets inside my home and attacks them, do I maintain the rule by refusing to injure the animal that is attacking them?

         No, of course not. I use the rule as a guideline. I don’t get so caught up in it that it leads to allowing the vulnerable coming under my area of authority to be violated. Protecting those that cannot protect themselves was the whole point of the rule in the first place.

 

            I get up from the computer to get a fresh cup of coffee and I am still haunted by visions of animals and children being torn to pieces by dogs that God didn’t create. I’m haunted by visions of children stolen from their beds by men so warped in their sexuality that they need absolute vulnerability to feel complete. I see mothers and fathers sobbing over their disabled children as the court orders their feeding tubes removed forever.

 

            I sit down on get on the internet and see that our judges questioned whether someone’s right to view graphic hunting or bull fighting videos would be impinged upon. They were my favorite judges too. The two I trusted the most anyway, for whatever it was worth.

 

            I may never sleep again.

 

 The Political Stray